Friday, December 16, 2011

This challenge made me nervous. While I am a fan of epic battles in fantasy—especially the one in King’s Shield by Sherwood Smith (If you have not read that book, you are missing out on one of the most amazing battle scenes in fantasy literature), I am not a great fan of wartime nonfiction.

My "Source," however, whom I introduced to you in a previous blog, has probably read ninety percent of the non-fiction Civil War and World War II books currently published.

Naturally, I called my Source. “Hello,” I said, “So I’m writing a battle scene and this is what I think should happen. Yada yada—”

The Source interrupted. “I don’t they would really do that—”

“Oh,” I said.

“This is what they would do,” said the Source.

“Oh,” I said again. “I suppose that would be the clever way to do it. But what about . . .”

“No,” said the Source. “They wouldn’t want to do that.”

“Oh,” I said again. “But I can have this, right? And this? And this?”

“I suppose,” said the Source.

“But I have to change this?”

“I’m not telling you that you have to change anything. I’m just telling you how someone in that situation would have fought the battle.”

“Oh, but—”

And at this point my Source had had enough and hung up the phone.

Drat. You see, I always draft a scene first before consulting my source. (There’s no point in pestering someone about a scene until you actually know you want to keep it). And I was feeling pretty good about the chapter. Before that phone call.

This was going to be a major revision. Which one never wants to do, but one feels like one should. Otherwise why consult the expert?

So . . . I rewrote the scene.

It didn’t work.You see the problem was that the general within my book is not an expert. In fact he isn’t a general at all, but someone given the title of “captain.” And he wouldn’t fight this battle like an expert. If he did, he might have a chance to win. And I don’t want him to.

He is going to die.

Which is exactly how my chapter felt after I rewrote it.

Dead.

Nine days on the same twelve-page chapter, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was frustrated. My source wouldn’t talk about it anymore. And my main character was furious.

Finally I consulted my other main character. You see this hadn’t occurred to me because this character isn’t in the scene. He is off suffering emotional damage and other tragic events during this battle. He doesn’t show up until after it’s over.

“At which point,” he told me, “I am appalled by how stupidly this battle was fought.”

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Oh! I realized. I don’t have to fight the battle the way the expertswould have fought it. I just have to let this character explain afterwards how they should have fought it.

I scrapped the whole revision, and wrapped up the chapter in twenty-four hours.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

"By what?” you might ask, as you have undoubtedly noticed my pathetic failure to blog over the past month.

I could lie. I could accuse sixth graders, the flu, or fall report cards.

I could even be more creative by accusing Title I meetings, state testing trainings, make-up conferences, collecting special materials for students’ Egypt projects, pre-observation forms, fighting with the copy machine, post-observation meetings, SIOP inservices, cutting squares for Roman mosaics, IEPs, baking chocolate chip cookies for family meetings, or ordering flashcards.

“You could not,” Aurelia says, “I would never allow you to neglect our blog on account of these trifling excuses. Tell them what you have been kidnapped by.”

Ambition.

This year I am both a freelance writer and a freelance teacher (a profession often maligned & more often described as “substitute teaching”). Ultimately, this frees me to do a lot more writing-related teaching, writing events, and venturing into the great unknown.

AKA earning more writing-related income.

Sadly, blogging does not fall under this category and has, therefore, been woefully neglected as I work my way up the steep learning curve of applying for writing events, following-up on e-mails, signing contracts, and even braving the world of subbing in kindergarten—yikes!

However, fear not! My characters have been collecting plenty of ideas for us to blog about in the future.